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Seventh
Day Adventist Church, Norwich

I don't often put
Seventh Day Adventist churches on the Norfolk and Suffolk
Churches sites. In fact, I think this is the first of
them on the Norfolk site - being a predominantly black
Church, perhaps there are not as many Seventh Day
Adventist churches in Norfolk as there are in Suffolk.
This is a denomination which, outside of metropolitan
areas, has often reused the former churches of other
denominations - in Ipswich, a fine old Methodist chapel,
and in Bury St Edmunds the curiosity of a tin tabernacle
which was originally built as the railway mission.

It
is pleasing, therefore, to find this
purpose-built building on the Dereham Road, set
back beside the Catholic school, but with a car
sales forecourt for immediate company. Built in
the light brown brick which was popular in urban
areas in the 1970s, it consists of a large hall
with a single-storey entrance facing the car park
and the road - it isn't clear if this is a later
extension.

Seventh Day Adventists
famously worship on a Saturday, and have become
the majority church on several Pacific Islands.
Many of the adherents in this country came to
England from the Carribean, often to work in
hospitals, and I have to say that they are some
of the nicest people I ever meet. Perhaps it goes
with the territory, as they say. Norwich is a
city which is historically famous for the
diversity and multiplicity of its shades of
Christianity, and so it is good to see the
tradition continuing.